Vocabulary Teaching In Perspective Of Whole Language Approach

More and more educators pay attention to the time-consuming but inefficientvocabulary teaching in College English. Despite the rapid development of the theories andpractice, students and teachers are still unsatisfied with the effect. This thesis explores theways to solve this problem under the guidance of Whole Language Approach with thediscussion of the previous methods of teaching vocabulary.This thesis reviews the studies home and abroad about Whole Language Approach.To lay the theoretical foundation for the later teaching methods, the author concludes itsfour features, namely wholeness, subjectivity, authenticity and the sociality based on theelaboration of its theory. Afterwards, this thesis retrospects approaches of vocabularyteaching in different periods of time and points out the shortage of each method. Throughan empirical research conducted in Ningbo University, the current situation and theexisting problems are discussed. It is found that students and teachers are both unsatisfiedwith the effect of vocabulary teaching. The vocabulary size of the freshmen is only2845and they feel the severe lack of the words in speaking and writing.There are two reasons for the problems. First, some teachers tend to adopt traditionaland direct methods to separately teach vocabulary without the context, which makes thelearning dull and the students become uninterested in or even scared of the vocabulary.Second, some teachers misunderstand the wholeness of the discourse, and they considerthe vocabulary teaching is the obstacles of understanding the whole discourse, so theyneglect the vocabulary in class.On account of these phenomena, this thesis put forward six principles of vocabularyteaching in perspective of Whole Language Approach:1) whole-to-part process;2) learnercentered class;3) real and natural materials;4) meaningful and functional activities;5) social form;6) various evaluations. Under the guidance of these principles, the authorelaborate the practical teaching process by nine steps:1) choose themes;2) preparematerials;3) list ideas;4) ask questions;5) present materials;6) add new concepts to thelist;7) answer the questions put forward before;8) write a relevant passage;9) make ane-book and a personal lists of word.Afterwards, the questionnaire and the interview show students and teachers favor thisnew teaching model and consider it an effective way to solve the problems. It achieved thesupport rate of83.3%. There are91.7%students considering it as a more efficient way forthem to learn new words.It comes to the conclusion that in perspective of Whole Language Approach,vocabulary teaching cannot be ignored and it has some principles to follow. Abundant andvarious methods of vocabulary teaching can be explored and designed in accordance withthe principles to improve the effects and efficiency.